


The 66th Seal

by theyre_called_my_sandals



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e22 Lucifer Rising - Voicemail Scene, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Guilty Dean Winchester, Guilty Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, No Wincest, No beta we die like Crowley, One-Shot, Sam Winchester Has Self-Esteem Issues, Sam Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, voicemail fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29179767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyre_called_my_sandals/pseuds/theyre_called_my_sandals
Summary: Sam didn’t own much of anything- he never had. All his life he had thrown away anything he didn’t think was 110% necessary to keep: if he could go without it then he would.So why does he still have a phone from 2009?
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	The 66th Seal

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve wanted to do a fix-it for this for awhile so here it is, enjoy. sorry if it’s bad i did this in one sitting while avoiding my homework.  
> i think i might do another version of this at some point too bc i had two different ideas that i couldn’t combine, so lmk if anyone would be interested in that ig

Sam Winchester was many things, but sentimental would never be one of them. 

He didn’t keep anything he didn’t think he would need later on.

In addition to the numerous costumes required by his work, he had exactly enough clothes to last him one week. He had two pairs of shoes: one nice pair for when he posed as an FBI agent and one for any other time.

As a child this made his father happy and enraged in turns.

Happy, when everything he owned fit in a duffel bag without even filling it.

Enraged when he got rid of something John had actually wanted.

Still, the habit stuck. Even when he lived at Stanford for so long and didn’t need everything to fit in a duffel bag, it still did. 

Even when he lived with Amelia.

Even now, at the bunker, he could take everything he owned with him in a duffle bag without any sort of struggle. 

Which was somewhere between admirable and pathetic, Dean thought as he snooped through his brothers almost saddeningly sparce room. 

Not that there was much of anything to snoop through. No diaries, no photographs, no letters, no drawings: nothing. Sam had taken his computer and phone with him, but even if they had been there, Dean doubted there would be anything saved to them. 

Still, what kind of big brother would he be if he didn’t at least check? 

He opened the bottom draw of Sam’s dresser, and was met with only a few pairs of jeans. Dean half heartedly picked up a pair, though he knew there would be nothing hidden beneath them.

Except that there was.

An old gray flip-phone that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years.

_Jackpot!_

Dean grabbed it, and was confused but relieved that it was on full battery, as if Sam had used it recently. He did _not_ want to try to find a charger for something this old. 

Dean went to the camera roll first. Not a single picture. 

There was no search history because there wasn’t even an internet on this.

He then went to messages. Nothing.

Then to contacts. No one unexpected.

Then to the phone app. There was one “recent” missed call, from way back in 2009. 

_2009? 2009! Right, yeah that was one of the apocalypse years! How could I forget?_

Huh. Dean wondered why Sam had saved a single call. Dean vaguely recognized the number but didn’t think anything of it. It was probably just an old contact, or one of a trillion fake numbers their friends had. 

He clicked on voicemails, and saw one voicemail as well, with the date on it matching that of the missed call. Dean wondered how the hell Sam had managed to keep it for so long, he must’ve had to re-save it once a week. Maybe he had made a program to do it for him- Sam had always been smart like that. 

Without thinking, Dean pressed play, and almost dropped the phone out of shock at the pure venom dripping from the mouth of the person speaking. 

_”Listen to me you blood sucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning, I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam. A vampire. You're not you anymore and there's no going back.”_

What. 

The. 

Fuck.

That had been Dean’s voice, but Dean had never said that, had he?

No, he wouldn’t.

But he had been pissed at Sam for awhile around the time this message came through...

But he would never say that, would he?

Dean tried to concentrate on his memories from that time. He stared at the date and everything clicked.

The night Lucifer rose- the night _Sam_ had let him out. Right, Dean had been pretty pissed then.

And spent most of that night locked in that weird ass room by Zachariah and the rest of the God Squad.

And he _had_ called Sam, and he _had_ left a voicemail. 

But it hadn’t been that one.

No, no Dean could feel it coming back to him now.

He apologized, he tried to set things right. He realized that Sam wasn’t the only one in the wrong and he tried to fix it.

And Sam didn’t know.

Sam- Sam thought Dean wanted him dead. Dean felt his eyes begin to water but quickly forced himself to stop being such a girl. This was fine. It was fine. He could just explain to Sam that this wasn’t him.

_Yeah, because that’s real believable,_ his brain spit back at him.

But this was still fine, right? It wasn’t like Sam believed this. It wasn’t like he had saved it for years and evidently still listened to it. It wasn’t like his little brother thought that Dean would ever hurt him. No, it wasn’t like that. It _wasn’t._

It couldn’t be. 

Sam couldn’t think his brother was actually capable of that. Sam couldn’t have such a low opinion of himself that he not only believed the voicemail, but believed he deserved it. Sam couldn’t believe these words so completely that he saved them even after he threw away near everything else. He couldn’t.

His eyes began to water again.

Dean didn’t know how long he sat on Sam’s floor until the Sasquatch himself came in. 

Dean was sure he must’ve been a sight to see, sitting on the floor, staring down at his hands in his lap, looking smaller than any man over 6 feet had the right to look.

He heard a loud sigh. “Dean, what are you doing? I told you to stay out of room.” He sounded somewhere between angry and exhausted.

Dean wordlessly put the old phone down between them, not daring to look up. He was met with another sigh.

“Don’t go through my stuff.”

“I didn’t know you had ‘stuff,’” Dean snarked, though his voice was strangely soft. Distantly he wondered if Sam even believed he deserved to have stuff.

“Dean..?” Sam sounded scared. Dean figured he wasn’t bet used to this side of his ‘fearless big brother.’

“That wasn’t me,” Dean blurted out, before realizing the statement on its own didn’t make sense. “The voicemail, I mean.” He awkwardly corrected.

Another sigh. “Yeah, I know. Neither of us were exactly ourselves that year, it’s fine.”

“No. I mean that is literally not me. Like I am not the one talking there.” Dean, said, finally looking up as he tried to make Sam understand. 

Sam paused for a moment. “...Yeah, okay Dean. Listen, it was forever ago, don’t worry about it. I’m not mad or anything, it’s all good.” He threw on an obviously fake smile for emphasis.

“Sam.” Dean said forcefully and didn’t miss Sam’s small flinch. “Sam I didn’t say that! I-I- remember that night, right? Remember I was locked in that weird angel room almost all night? Until Cass broke me out? I called you from in there, but someone must’ve messed with the call, because I swear I didn’t say that, I would never, and I-“

“Dean. Calm down. This was years ago. It’s all good.”

“You have to believe me though, I didn’t say any of that.”

“It doesn’t matter Dean.”

“Yes it does!”

“Why?” 

Dean looked up again. Sam was genuinely asking why. He didn’t- Dean was gonna be sick. 

“Why? Sam! It matters because you’ve been listening to and believing this bullshit since 2009! I called you to _apologize!_ I never- NEVER stopped considering you my brother and I wasn’t- I wasn’t ever going to...to _kill_ you.” His voice broke on the word ‘kill.’ God, how could his Sammy have spent all this time believing that? After everything? It hurt a little if he was being honest. 

“Okay, okay, calm down. It was forever ago, it really doesn’t matter to me anymore-“

“Then why do you still have it?”

Dean could tell the question caught Sam off guard. The larger man sighed for the thousandth time and sat down on his bed. “To remind myself.” He paused. “Man, I know you remember how far off the deep end I went, what with Ruby and the demon blood and freeing fucking _Lucifer?_ Even if you didn’t say it, I need the reminder of how badly I fucked up so that I don’t do it again.” He looked at Dean with his puppy dog eyes, as if begging the conversation to be over. 

Too bad.

“Sam. Sam you can’t still be blaming yourself for that,” He started, before being cut off. 

“Why not? I did it. And sure it was all fine in the end, but it almost wasn’t and that’s on me, and you know that’s true.”

“No, Sam. No it isn’t. Listen, I’ve never been one to admit when I’m wrong but you have to know I was when I blamed you for all that. You broke one seal out of 66. So did I, it was just easier to be mad at you for breaking the last one than to admit how mad I was at myself for breaking the first one.”

“That’s different,” Sam started 

“No. No it isn’t. If anything what I did was worse. I didn’t know I was breaking a seal but I knew agreeing to torture souls couldn’t be a good thing, but I just wanted the torture to stop. I was being selfish. You? You thought you were doing something good, something right.”

“Dean-“

“No, I’m right! But I’m getting sidetracked, this isn’t about me, Sam. Listen: the apocalypse wasn’t your fault. You broke a single seal out of 66 with both heaven and hell working together to get you there. And how could anyone have known killing Lilith would be a bad thing? And even if you knew, what was the other option? If we can’t kill her then what? I can’t think of any way to lock her up, so what were we supposed to do, let her roam the Earth, killing everyone? Wait for someone else to kill her and just start the apocalypse anyway? Even locking her up would be dangerous since we’d still have 65/66 seals broken, and all it would take is one mistake to start it again.” Dens stopped for a minute. “The apocalypse would’ve happened no matter what. Heaven and hell both wanted it to; nothing you did or didn’t do would’ve stopped it from starting. But, you ended it. You sacrificed yourself and ended it. You’ve more than made up for whatever you were forced into doing.”

Sam stared at him for a moment. “Dean, you know that’s not exactly true.”

“In what way? What about anything I’ve said is wrong?”

“Well for starters you think what happened in hell was your fault-“

“Sam-“

“No, Dean. I’ve been to hell. I never had the option of making the torture stop but if I had? I honestly have no idea what I would’ve said. I’d like to think I’d say no, but I can’t know for sure. What I do know for sure is that I don't blame anyone who says yes.”

Dean looked at him for a moment. “This wasn’t supposed to be you making me feel better.”

Sam let out a soft chuckle. 

“For real though, Sammy, I didn’t leave this voicemail.”

“It’s okay, Dean,”

“No, Sam. It isn’t. Look, I get that you might be a long way away from believing that you didn’t...that you _don’t_ deserve this, but I need you to know that I never said any of it, and I never believed you deserved to hear it.” When Sam hesitated he kept going. “What do I need to do to prove it to you? I don’t care if I have to get all the Supernatural books from Becky to find proof, I need you to know this was never me.”

“No! No, oh god no. Don’t bring Becky into this, please,” Sam laughed, before his face settled down to something more serious. “I believe you.”

“No you don’t.” Dean sighed. “But you will,” He said pulling out his phone and clicking on an old contact. “Hey, Becky,” he said loudly, already running out of the room.

“Dean, no!” Sam yelled, chasing after him.

A few days later Becky had successfully proved Dean right, much to Sam’s relief and annoyance. 

As she walked out of their cheap motel room (because like hell they would invite to the bunker, nu-uh. No way.), Dean felt relief like he hadn’t in weeks.

Though the conversation itself was stressful not to mention that he had to be constantly vigilant to keep Becky from groping Sam (maybe, in hindsight, Dean realized he should’ve just bought the books), Dean was glad it happened. Sam now knew with certainty that his brother had never hated him- had never planned on killing him. 

Dean knew this was far from a cure-all. He knew Sam still blamed himself for everything, and would probably never fully believe that Dean hadn’t subconsciously meant those words.

But weeks later when he found the phone in the garbage, Dean couldn’t help but to take it as a win.

**Author's Note:**

> comment or get sent to the cage


End file.
